For A Future Worth Having
by thebarefootflapper
Summary: "I once told Sybil that sometimes a hard sacrifice must be made for a future that's worth having. This is my sacrifice, and Sybbie's future is completely worth it." - Tom and Mary bond over love and loss and set the foundations for a future worth having.


**_This is just a little Mary/Tom bonding story I started months ago but somehow forgot about. It was between 4x01 and 4x02 So perhaps a little bit AU by now but I just continued with the original idea nonetheless. I do ship them in a romantic sense, but I wanted to focus more on the sibling bonding aspect of their relationship here and this is probably going to evolve into a series of short fics focusing on how their lives progress after losing their respective spouses. I don't think there's enough canon compliant stories out there and that's understandable but I feel the time has come for me to try something a little bit different. Enjoy and let me know what you think._**

* * *

The air was crisp and clear, a welcome change from the stuffiness she'd experienced after being cooped up indoors for so very long. She's spent a lifetime here, but never once has she been to this particular place, viewing the majesty of the Abbey below and surveying the kingdom that she's been so wrongly denied thrice now from a whole new angle.

"It is beautiful," Tom says. "But it's still an emblem of everything that's wrong with the class system."

Mary furrows her brow. "Then why help us save it?" she asks, a question that has long plagued her mind but never really asked. "Surely you'd be happy to see it razed to the ground?"

"Once upon a time, I would have agreed with you," he replies. "Though while I haven't lost sight of my politics or my beliefs, my priorities have changed. I'm a father now, first and foremost. My childhood was hard, the winters unbearably cold and scarcely enough food to go around at times. I don't want my daughter to know the pain of true hunger or to have to carry a knife around in her boot every time she leaves the house after dark. Yes she'll be growing up in a world I've always been strongly opposed to, but I'll make sure I teach her all about the value of money, the importance of hard work and I'll never let her forget where she comes from. At the same time though, she'll be able to have a proper education and the freedom neither her mother nor I had to do whatever she wants with her life. I once told Sybil that sometimes a hard sacrifice must be made for a future that's worth having. This is my sacrifice, and Sybbie's future is completely worth it."

"That sounds more like you," says Mary, an echo of the past when another Crawley sister had spoken those exact same words to him. "You had me worried when you started lamenting the existence of death duties."

"I wasn't lamenting them," he clarifies. "I believe in them, what I meant was that it just seems so unfair that you should once again come close to what should have always been yours."

"Three times now."

"Three?"

"Once when I was born, then when Patrick died and Matthew proclaimed the new heir and now this..." She goes quiet then and it's obvious she no longer wishes to discuss this particular topic. "Will you ever go back to Ireland?"

Tom sighs. "I really couldn't say. I'd like to, but it's more a question of whether they'd ever let me go back. I wouldn't risk it until I knew it was certain. Whether or not we'd stay here is another matter entirely, though I think it'll be a couple more years before I have to make that decision."

"You should have your family come to stay," Mary suggests. "Sybbie's almost two and the only person to have seen her still is your brother."

"I don't think your father would like it."

"Tom, if you really cared about what my father thought then you and I wouldn't be stood here now and you most certainly wouldn't have married my sister."

"You have a point there," he laughs. "I doubt any of them would have the time, though I will ask. I do miss them."

"So," she says abruptly, once again changing the subject as she so often does without a moment's notice. "Reluctant saviour of Downton as you are, you're still refusing to wear white tie to Mama's grand soirée next month."

"Oh, absolutely," he replies as they walk back towards the car. I wear a morning coat without having been told to these days and I've grown used to black tie,but there is no way on God's earth that you're getting me into a set of tails. It reminds me too much of my days as a footman..."

"You were a footman?" Mary asks in surprise.

Tom nods. "It's how I started in service before apprenticing to the aging old chauffeur who had once been the coachman. He knew little about driving cars and even less about how to fix them. I'd grown up around machinery on the family farm so I began helping him on my half days and such. They took me on properly as soon as he retired."

"Is there anything that you haven't done?"

"Jack of all trades and master of none, apparently."

"That's not true," says Mary quietly. "Sybil once showed me several of your articles... You're a very talented writer."

Tom scoffs. "And look where that got me."

"And I also know that you're a wonderful father. Especially now that I understand just how hard it is to do the job of two parents at once."

"So about this party," he says, suddenly changing the subject as an idea dawns on him, one which might just put a smile on Mary's face. "I'll wear white tie..."

Mary raises a sceptical eyebrow at him. "You will."

"On one condition," he says. "You drive the car from here to that tree."

She looks over her shoulder towards where he's pointing before turning to look at her brother-in-law again. "Absolutely not."

"Fine," Tom replies. "Then I'll wear the black tie and your father can have a right gob on with me all night. I'll just tell him that it's your fault."

"A right what?" Mary asks. She's learnt that Tom can be the most terrible tease and has a somewhat odd sense of humour that she's come to find rather endearing.

"Doesn't matter," he replies. "Just something my Da used to say when he'd done something Mam didn't approve of."

"You'll really wear the tails?" Mary asks after a moment's silence.

"I promise," Tom replies. "If you drive the car."

"Fine," Mary sighs. "How hard can it be?"

**_-xxx-_**

As it turns out, it's much harder than Mary had anticipated, though not for reasons she may have expected. Tom had been an excellent tutor and she'd soon got the hang if it, her confidence growing with his words of encouragement. It was only when she accelerated and the car picks up speed that she begins to panic. She stops abruptly, the leather of her gloves stretched across her knuckles as she grips the steering wheel tightly..

"I can't, she says. "I'm sorry, I just can't."

"You saw, didn't you?"

Mary nods. "Matthew." That horrible image had flooded her mind - of the mangles wreck of her husband's car and the way that his hand had been so cold and lifeless in her own as she'd sat and held it in the aftermath as she refused to believe that he was really gone.

Tom sighs and moves to help her out of the car so that she can get some fresh air and clam herself down. "I'm sorry," he says quietly. "It was a bad idea."

"No, I'm alright... Honestly." She forces a smile - one that Tom can see right through by now and knows that it's one she uses when she's telling people that she's fine when, in reality, it's quite the opposite.

"Come and sit down for a minute."

"I'm not sitting on the floor."

Tom rolls his eyes, though it's nice to see she's quickly getting back to her usual self, and begins to unfasten his coat before laying it down on the ground. "Milady..."

"You're insufferable sometimes, do you know that?"

"I'm your brother," he replies. "It's my job to be. I'm also your friend, which is why I made that bet with you. I just wanted you to have some fun... I obviously didn't think and..."

"Tom, it's fine, really," says Mary. "If anything, I'm glad of it. I'm sick of people pitying me and feeling as though they're treading on eggshells all the time."

"They care about you," Tom tells her. "They just don't want to upset you."

"I know, but..." Mary sighs, unable to find the words and not really in the mood to argue with him. "I've never really had any friends."

"Sybil once said as much to me," he replies. "I got the impression it was the same for all three of you. You've spent your whole lives surrounded by people though, from an early age you were taught how to behave around them. It was an act... There are few who've gotten to know you for who you really are."

"And you have?"

"Never underestimate how much a servant sees."

Mary stares out towards the horizon, the late winter sunlight almost blinding but illuminating everything with a soft golden glow that adds to the peace and tranquility of the moment. "I almost loathed you once," she confesses. "I thought you'd corrupted my little sister, pressuring her into running way with you or, God forbid, got her into trouble somehow."

"Sybil was smarter than that."

"She was, but I didn't know that you were."

Tom runs his leather clad fingers through the sparse covering of grass on the hillside. "I thought I was finished when you found out what I'd asked of her... And then after you convinced her to come back with you the night we tried to elope."

"It was for the best."

"I know that now. God knows how things would have been if we'd succeeded. Chances are, she would have been disowned and losing her family was one of the things she feared most about agreeing to marry me. I don't know whether she would still be here or not but, either way, I'm strangely glad that you were all happy for me to stay, even if it is only for Sybbie's sake, especially where your father's concerned..."

"That's not true. You're family, Tom. As for Papa, he doesn't despise you anywhere near as much as he used to."

Tom chuckles as he catches sight of her little smirk. "I think I have Matthew to thank for that," he says. "He gave me a chance when everyone else just saw me as the family scandal never to be spoken to or about. I owe him an awful lot and, if it's alright by you, I'd like to repay that debt by being as involved in George's upbringing as much as I can. Don't get me wrong, I have no intention of replacing his father because nobody could ever do that, but just as I asked of you about Sybbie, I just want to be there if he needs me."

"I'd like that," Mary smiles. "Very much. You are his godfather after all."

The pair sit in silence for a moment or two, contemplating the hands that fate has dealt them.

"How did you know about what I'd seen when we were in the car."

"Just a hunch," he replies. "Because I saw Sybil... When I learnt that you were in labour. I have some inclination of what Matthew was going through but... I just kept reliving it in my mind, that moment, and I still do from time to time. And I just prayed that you'd be alright..."

"I felt the same," she says. "And I said as much to Isobel. Perhaps, like you, I spent too much time concerned with the safety of myself and the baby that I forgot about Matthew..."

"It wasn't your fault. Don't think that for a single second. God knows I spent enough time blaming myself for what happened to Sybil, wondering if there was anything I could have done for things to have ended differently. But the thing I've learnt is that you can't dwell on the past and, to be honest, I don't think that Sybil would want me to. She was always such an optimist and never failed to see a bright and better future ahead, no matter how dark things might have seemed at the time. I want to be more like that, even though I know it isn't going to be easy."

Mary nods in understanding. "Grandpapa used to call her his little ray of sunshine. I suppose that's what Sybbie and George are to us because, I don't know about you, but I don't think I could have carried on if it weren't for them. And you're right, about living in the past; Matthew wouldn't want it either. Though I don't know if I'll ever be able to move on from him completely."

"No, I know," says Tom, catching her meaning. "That's not what I'm implying. I think it's just the case of making the best of a bad situation."

"For a future worth having."

"For a future worth having," Tom agrees. "Though, being a wealthy and beautiful widow, you're probably going to have every eligible bachelor in the country queuing up at your front door."

"Then, as my brother, is it not your duty to beat them all away with a stick?"

"If needs be," he smirks. "Pick one now and we can take it back with us if you like."

He helps her to her feet and her mood suddenly grows somber once more. "In all seriousness, what if they do? I loved Matthew for ten years, I can't just forget that and move on."

"Nobody's asking you to," says Tom. "But someday you might just meet someone who makes you laugh again, who puts a smile on your face whenever you think about him and who you think might just be the one to fill that gaping hole in your heart... and you'll know that it's time, whether it be five years or five decades from now."

"I never knew you could be such a romantic."

"Do you think that I would have spent all those years waiting for your sister if I weren't?"

"Touché," Mary replies as they start walking back towards the car. "Though what about you?"

"As I say, if it happens, it happens. Though I've heard it said that you never forget your first love and, truth be told, I don't think anything could possibly compare to what we had."

"No, I don't suppose it could," Mary agrees as he helps her into the car. "Tom... I'm glad you decided to stay."

"Why, Lady Mary, if you're not careful, people might think you're growing fond of me."

"Don't push your luck, Branson."

**_-xxx-_**

They cross paths at the top of the staircase and, admittedly, Mary is rather stunned to see his chosen attire.

"You're wearing tails," she says. "Even though I didn't uphold my end of the bargain."

"But you tried," replies Tom. "And that's good enough. Besides, if I'm throwing myself to the sharks, I may as well be properly dressed."

Mary smiles. "Thank you, it'll mean a lot to Mama."

"Shall we?" He asks, offering her his arm.

"I suppose we'd better," she says without a great deal of enthusiasm. "I think we're already late."

"I haven't brought my suitor beating stick, do you think I'll need it?"

Mary laughs. "I think you'll be alright. There's only really Tony Gillingham and I haven't seen him in years. I shouldn't think he'll cause too much bother..."

And those are famous las words indeed.


End file.
